I'm just not sure if I remember this correctly or not, but I thought I saw something somewhere about not being able to follow footnote hyperlinks on Kobos. I download the NY Times via Calibre every day and need to be able to use hyperlinks to navigate between articles and sections. Will I be able to do this on a Kobo Glo?

Hyperlinks worked in newspapers before they worked in books, way back when. I have not had a newspaper subscription through a Kobo device for a long time, so this is not a report on the most current state of affairs.

They work very poorly for me (footnotes). Using the inline TOC seems to work fine, but I've given up on footnotes working. I'm reading Pratchett's Discworld books, and I don't even try to follow the links.

If I email a NY Times epub to someone with a Kobo Glo or Touch, could you let me know if it works correctly on your device? Please PM me if you're willing to help out with this little experiment. Thanks!

ETA ~ added attachment for anyone who'd like to test. Also emailed to rainio and feenix1363 who were kind enough to help out with this

Just did a quick test on my Glo. I could click on the story links in the various sections, which took me to the relevant stories. Then, at the end of each story, there is a "Section Menu" and "Main Menu" link in a footer, and these also work.

Two caveats, though:

The links do not look different to normal text, so you would need to know they are there (obvious for stories in the menus, and the footer options).

The section links in the main menu are very hard to select properly. I found it next to impossible to go to "International", as it either only recognised the option above and below. Increasing the font fixed this, but if you like reading in a smaller font (what I had for my default size), you'd have to constantly change settings every time you wanted to navigate the main menu.

But yeah, it basically works without any major issues whatsoever. I'll include this newspaper functionality in my big Glo review, which I will hopefully be able to post on the weekend.

Just did a quick test on my Glo. I could click on the story links in the various sections, which took me to the relevant stories. Then, at the end of each story, there is a "Section Menu" and "Main Menu" link in a footer, and these also work.

Two caveats, though:

The links do not look different to normal text, so you would need to know they are there (obvious for stories in the menus, and the footer options).

The section links in the main menu are very hard to select properly. I found it next to impossible to go to "International", as it either only recognised the option above and below. Increasing the font fixed this, but if you like reading in a smaller font (what I had for my default size), you'd have to constantly change settings every time you wanted to navigate the main menu.

But yeah, it basically works without any major issues whatsoever. I'll include this newspaper functionality in my big Glo review, which I will hopefully be able to post on the weekend.

The second one seems like a very big caveat. To say it "it basically works without any major issues whatsoever" when also saying "The section links in the main menu are very hard to select properly. I found it next to impossible to ..." seems rather contradictory?

Yes, some kind and wonderful soul did a great job with the NY Times recipe. I sampled the subscription on Nook and it wasn't nearly as nice.

Sounds like a bit of a mixed bag so far. I definitely don't want to have to change the font size every time I access the main section menu, lol. I'm probably on it 10-20 times over the course of a typical reading session. If anyone else tried it, please let us know the results.

The second one seems like a very big caveat. To say it "it basically works without any major issues whatsoever" when also saying "The section links in the main menu are very hard to select properly. I found it next to impossible to ..." seems rather contradictory?

Well, you have kind of misquoted me, as I go on to say that there is a workaround, but yeah, I can see the contradiction in stating that there are no "major issues whatsoever". I guess it's down to what I consider a "major issue".

I guess not seeing this as major is down to me being used to navigating the web on my Android phone. I have to zoom in any time there are links clustered together, so I see this as more of an issue with touch screen capability rather than an issue with the Glo itself.

The big clincher is how long it takes to change the font width. If it was a simple pinch to zoom feature like on Android and iOS, this would be a non-issue. But as it stands, having to pull up the font menu twice every time you want to go to the main menu (once to enlarge the menu, again when you get to the article to make the text smaller) would break the reading experience, but only if your preferred font size is quite small (like under 25% on the slider).

I'll add this to my Glo review and make a recommendation that Kobo implement a pinch to zoom capability for font size in future firmware / models. Might be difficult/impossible with the Glo's infrared touch technology, though...

...
I guess not seeing this as major is down to me being used to navigating the web on my Android phone. I have to zoom in any time there are links clustered together, so I see this as more of an issue with touch screen capability rather than an issue with the Glo itself.

The big clincher is how long it takes to change the font width. If it was a simple pinch to zoom feature like on Android and iOS, this would be a non-issue. But as it stands, having to pull up the font menu twice every time you want to go to the main menu (once to enlarge the menu, again when you get to the article to make the text smaller) would break the reading experience, but only if your preferred font size is quite small (like under 25% on the slider).

I'll add this to my Glo review and make a recommendation that Kobo implement a pinch to zoom capability for font size in future firmware / models. Might be difficult/impossible with the Glo's infrared touch technology, though...

I look forward to your review when you try footnotes in a sideloaded Discworld epup.

I don't think your solution is very worthwhile (just for footnote navigation). Unless they do an extremely good job of implementing it. They will need to:

1) provide pinch to zoom
2) be able to reliably click on the link
3) a quick way to get back to the previous font size
and
4) they need to implement this for epub (I'm willing to ignore all the other formats).

The Touch has been out for over a year, and this hasn't been a high priority so far. By the time they do implement it, they will be on an Android based firmware, and new reader software, and the cycle will start all over again.

And FWIW, I read with the font slider at 50%, and have given up on traversing footnotes. The footnotes I try to click on are usually just a "*", which I'm sure just exasperates the problem. How about an alternate solution: a menu option that provides a list of the footnotes on the current page (along with surrounding text).

I look forward to your review when you try footnotes in a sideloaded Discworld epup.

I've rented two Discworld epubs from my local eLibrary service: "The Colour of Magic" and "Guards! Guards!". I've had a quick look at "The Colour of Magic" and there only appears to be one footnote, early on in the book, with the footnote appearing at the very end of the book. Is this how footnotes normally work on epubs?

Quote:

I don't think your solution is very worthwhile (just for footnote navigation). Unless they do an extremely good job of implementing it. They will need to:

1) provide pinch to zoom
2) be able to reliably click on the link
3) a quick way to get back to the previous font size
and
4) they need to implement this for epub (I'm willing to ignore all the other formats).

The Touch has been out for over a year, and this hasn't been a high priority so far. By the time they do implement it, they will be on an Android based firmware, and new reader software, and the cycle will start all over again.

Absolutely agree with you on all points. I don't suspect my recommendation to be implemented on the Glo / Touch, but for future models, it makes sense to allow the user to use a pinch-to-zoom feature to adjust font size, as I believe some of the smartphone eReader apps do.

Quote:

And FWIW, I read with the font slider at 50%, and have given up on traversing footnotes. The footnotes I try to click on are usually just a "*", which I'm sure just exasperates the problem. How about an alternate solution: a menu option that provides a list of the footnotes on the current page (along with surrounding text).

Brilliant idea! Footnotes are often attached to a bit of text, so this could be a solution that works with the existing technology. Not sure about how footnotes are coded, though, so there could be an issue there...